Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the executive car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the 4 x 4 wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 435hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 40-valves 335hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the executive car segment, which is generally a fortune safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Phaeton offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank S as average reliability-wise, and Phaeton is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Mercedes Benz S rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be Mercedes Benz S, averaging around 9.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (29 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 28% difference compared to Phaeton!

Mercedes Benz appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, Phaeton offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Mercedes Benz. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.